Honor Thyself (2 page)

Her children had been young then, and still at home, which was an added concern for Carole. Sean had none of his own, and they had none together. He was crazy about her two children, and they had both agreed that they were too busy and wouldn't have had time to give to another child. Instead they nurtured each other, and their marriage. Anthony and Chloe were both in high school when she and Sean married, which was part of her decision to marry Sean. She didn't like setting the example of just living together with no further commitment, and her children had cast a strong positive vote for the marriage. They wanted Sean to stick around, and he had proven to be a good friend and stepfather to both of them. And now, much to her chagrin, both her children were grown up and gone.

Chloe was in her first job, after graduating from Stanford. She was the assistant to the assistant accessories editor for a fashion magazine in London. It was mostly prestige and fun, helping with styling, setting up shoots, doing errands, for almost no pay and the thrill of working for British
Vogue.
Chloe loved it. With looks similar to her mother's, she could have been a model, but preferred to be on the editorial end, and she was having a ball in London. She was a bright, outgoing girl and was excited about the people she met through her job. She and Carole talked often on the phone.

Anthony was following in his father's footsteps on Wall Street, in the world of finance, after getting an MBA from Harvard. He was a serious, responsible young man, and had always made them proud. He was as handsome as Chloe was pretty, but had always been a little shy. He went out with lots of bright, attractive girls, but no one important to him so far. His social life interested him less than his work at the office. He was diligent about his career in finance, and always kept his goals in mind. In fact, very little deterred him, and more often than not when Carole called him on his cell phone late at night, he was still working at his desk.

Both children had been deeply attached to Sean, and to their mother. They had always been wholesome, sensible, and loving, despite the occasional mother-daughter skirmish between Chloe and Carole. Chloe had always needed her mother's time and attention more than her brother, and complained bitterly when her mother went on location for a movie, particularly during high school, when she wanted Carole around, like the other mothers. Her complaints had made Carole feel guilty, even though she had the kids fly out to visit on the set whenever possible, or came home during breaks in filming to be with them. Anthony had been easy, Chloe always a little less so, at least for Carole. Chloe thought her father walked on water, and was more than willing to point out her mother's faults. Carole told herself it was the nature of relationships between mother and daughter. It was easier to be the mother of an adoring son.

And now, on her own, with her kids grown and gone, and happy in their own lives, Carole was determined to tackle the novel she had promised herself to write for so long. In the past few weeks, she had gotten seriously discouraged, and had begun to doubt it was ever going to happen. She was beginning to wonder if she had been wrong to turn down the part she had declined in August. Maybe she had to give up writing, and go back to making movies. Mike Appelsohn, her agent, was getting annoyed with her. He was upset about the parts she kept turning down, and fed up with hearing about the book she didn't write.

The story line was eluding her, the characters still seemed vague, the outcome and development seemed to be tied in a knot somewhere in her head. It was all a giant tangle, like a ball of yarn after the cat played with it. And no matter what she did, or how intently she thought about it, she couldn't seem to sort out the mess. It was frustrating her beyond belief.

There were two Oscars sitting on a shelf above her desk, and a Golden Globe she'd won just before the year she'd taken off when Sean got sick. Hollywood still hadn't forgotten her, but Mike Appelsohn assured her they'd give up on her eventually, if she didn't go back to work. She had run out of excuses for him, and given herself till the end of the year to start the book. She had two months left, and was getting nowhere. She was beginning to feel panicked about it every time she sat down at her desk.

She heard a door open gently behind her, and turned with an anxious look. She didn't mind the interruption, in fact she welcomed it. The day before, she had reorganized her bathroom closets instead of working on the book. When she turned, she saw Stephanie Morrow, her assistant, standing hesitantly in the doorway of her office. She was beautiful, a schoolteacher by profession, whom Carole had hired for the summer, fifteen years before, when she first came back from Paris. Carole had bought the house in Bel-Air, accepted parts in two films that first year, and signed on for a year in a Broadway play. She got deeply involved in women's rights, had publicity to do for her movies, and needed help organizing her kids and staff. Stephanie had come to help her out for two months, and stayed forever. Fifteen years later, she was thirty-nine years old. She lived with a man, but had never married. He was understanding about her work and traveled a lot himself. Stephanie still wasn't sure if she ever wanted to marry, and was clear she didn't want children. She teased Carole and said she was her baby. Carole reciprocated by saying Stephanie was her nanny. She was a fabulous assistant, handled the press brilliantly, and could talk her way in or out of any situation. There was nothing she couldn't manage.

When Sean was sick, she had done everything she could for Carole. She was there for the kids, for Sean, and for her. She even helped Carole plan the funeral and pick the casket. Over the years, Stephanie had become more than just an employee. Despite the eleven years that separated them, the two women had become close friends, with deep affection and respect for each other. There wasn't an ounce of jealousy in Stevie, as Carole called her. She was happy for Carole's victories, mourned her tragedies, loved her job, and faced each day with patience and humor.

Carole was deeply attached to her, and readily admitted that she would have been lost without her. She was the perfect assistant, and as people did in jobs like hers, it meant putting Carole's life first and her own second, or sometimes not having a life at all. Stevie loved Carole and her job, and didn't mind. Carole's life was far more exciting than her own.

Stevie stood six feet tall, with straight black hair and big brown eyes, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, as she stood in Carole's office doorway. “Tea?” she whispered.

“No. Arsenic,” Carole said with a groan, as she swiveled in her chair. “I can't write this goddamn book. Something's stopping me, and I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just terror. Maybe I know I can't do it. I don't know why I thought I could.” She looked at Stevie, frowning in despair.

“Yes, you can,” Stephanie said calmly. “Give it time. They say the hardest part is the beginning. You just have to sit there long enough to do it.” For the past week, Stevie had helped her reorganize all her closets, then redesign the garden, and clean out the garage. And decide to redo the kitchen. Carole had come up with every possible distraction and excuse to avoid starting the book, again. She had been doing it for months. “Maybe you need to take a break,” Stevie suggested, and Carole groaned.

“My whole life is a break these days. Sooner or later, I have to go back to work, either on a movie, or writing this book. Mike is going to kill me if I turn down another script.”

Mike Appelsohn was a producer, and had acted as her agent for thirty-two years, since he discovered her at eighteen, light-years before. A million years ago, she had been just a farm girl from Mississippi, with long blond hair and huge green eyes, who came to Hollywood more out of curiosity than real ambition. Mike Appelsohn had made her what she was today. That, and the fact that she had real talent. Her first screen test at eighteen had blown everyone away. The rest was history. Her history. Now she was one of the most famous actresses in the world, and successful beyond her wildest dreams. So what was she doing trying to write a book? She couldn't help but ask herself the same question over and over again. She knew the answer, just as Stevie did. She was looking for a piece of herself, a piece she had hidden in a drawer somewhere, a part of her she wanted and needed to find, in order for the rest of her life to make sense.

Her last birthday had affected her deeply. Turning fifty had been an important landmark for her, particularly now that she was alone. It couldn't be ignored. She had decided that she wanted to weave all the pieces of her together, in ways she never had before, to solder them into a whole, instead of having bits and pieces of herself drifting in space. She wanted her life to make sense, to herself if no one else. She wanted to go back to the beginning and figure it all out.

So much had happened to her by accident, in her early years particularly, or at least it seemed that way. Good luck and bad, though mostly good, in her career anyway, and with her kids. But she didn't want her life to seem like an accident, fortuitous or otherwise. So many things she'd done had been reactions to circumstances or other people, rather than decisions she'd actively made. It seemed important now to know if the choices she'd made had been the right ones. And then what? She kept asking herself what difference it would make. It wouldn't change the past. But it might alter the course of her life for her remaining years. That was the difference she wanted to make. With Sean gone, it seemed more important to her now to make choices and decisions, and not just wait for things to happen to her. What did
she
want? She wanted to write a book. That was all she knew. And maybe after that, the rest would come. Maybe then she'd have a better sense of what parts she wanted to play in movies, what impact she wanted to have on the world, what causes she wanted to support, and who she wanted to be for the rest of her life. Her kids had grown up. Now it was her turn.

Stevie disappeared and reappeared with a cup of tea. Decaffeinated vanilla tea. Stevie ordered it for her from Mariage Frères in Paris. Carole had become addicted to it while she lived there, and it was still her favorite. She was always grateful for the steaming mugs of it Stevie handed her. It was comforting for her. Carole looked pensive as she put the mug to her lips and took a sip. “Maybe you're right,” Carole said thoughtfully, glancing at the woman who had been her companion for years. They traveled together, since Carole took her on the set when she was making a movie. Stevie was a one-man band who made Carole's life smooth as silk, and enjoyed doing it for her. She adored her job, and coming to work every day. Each day was different, and a challenge. And it still excited her after all these years that she worked for Carole Barber.

“What am I right about?” Stevie asked, letting down her long limbs into the room's comfortable leather easy chair. They spent a lot of hours together in that room, planning things, talking things out. Carole was always willing to listen to Stevie's opinions, even if she did something different in the end. Although most of the time, she found her assistant's advice to be solid, and valuable to her. And to Stevie, Carole was not only an employer, but something of a wise aunt. The two women shared opinions on life, and often saw things the same way, particularly about men.

“Maybe I need to take a trip.” Not to avoid the book, but maybe in this case to crack it, like a hard shell that resisted and wouldn't open any other way.

“You could go visit the kids,” Stevie suggested. Carole loved visiting her son and daughter, since they seldom came home anymore. It was hard for Anthony to get away from the office, although he always made time to see her in the evening when she was in New York, no matter how busy he was. He loved his mother. As did Chloe, who would drop everything to run around London with her mother to play and shop. She soaked up her mother's love and time, like a flower in rain.

“I just did that a few weeks ago. I don't know… maybe I need to do something completely different … go somewhere I've never been before… like Prague or something… or Romania … Sweden …” There weren't a lot of places left on the planet where she hadn't been. She had spoken at women's conferences in India, Pakistan, and Beijing. She had met heads of state around the world, worked with UNICEF, and addressed the U.S. Senate.

Stevie hesitated to state the obvious. Paris. She knew how much the city meant to her. Carole had lived in Paris for two and a half years, and had only been back twice in the last fifteen. Carole said there was nothing for her there anymore. She had taken Sean to Paris shortly after they were married, but he hated the French, and always preferred going to London instead. Stevie knew she hadn't been back now in about ten years. And she'd only been there once in the five years before Sean, when she sold the house on the rue Jacob, or actually in a small alley behind it. Stevie had gone with her to close the house, and loved it. But by then Carole's life had shifted back to L.A., and she said it made no sense to keep a house in Paris. It had been hard for her when she closed it, and she never went back again, till her only trip there with Sean. They stayed at the Ritz, and he complained the entire time. He loved Italy and England, but not France.

“Maybe it's time for you to go back to Paris,” Stevie said cautiously. She knew that ghosts lingered there for her, but after fifteen years, she couldn't imagine that they would still affect Carole. Not after eight years with Sean. Whatever had happened to Carole in Paris had long since healed, and she still spoke of the city fondly from time to time.

“I don't know,” Carole said, thinking about it. “It rains a lot in November. The weather is so good here.”

“The weather doesn't seem to be helping you write the book. Somewhere else then. Vienna … Milan… Venice… Buenos Aires… Mexico City… Hawaii. Maybe you need a little time on the beach, if you're looking for good weather.” They both knew the weather wasn't the issue.

“I'll see,” Carole said with a sigh, getting out of her desk chair. “I'll think about it.”